


curls, soft to touch

by scythias



Series: star wars [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Love, Comfort, Dogma Has Anxiety, Fluff, Gen, Hair Braiding, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23694031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scythias/pseuds/scythias
Summary: Tup smiles softly. “You want to braid my hair? I was going to ask you later but I feel like now’s a good time.”Dogma nods. “If you don’t mind.”“Of course I don’t,” Tup laughs.
Relationships: Dogma & CT-5385 | Tup
Series: star wars [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663864
Comments: 5
Kudos: 92





	curls, soft to touch

**Author's Note:**

> got too stressed over writing kote that i just did a small cooldown and wrote this. i made myself cry while writing this so i hope you're happy. for a little confirmation, tup and dogma are still clone cadets, they're just on another planet currently for some endurance training and all that. kind of like a field trip.
> 
> also headcanon that tup and dogma don't know a lot of mando'a because they were one of the newer batches by the time kenobi comes around, so they pretty much only use vod with a few other phrases they picked up.
> 
> anyways here, have them being cute and stuff.

Dogma likes Tup’s hair.

He doesn’t often tell people this. He doesn’t often admit it to anyone, much less himself. To him, it was a sort of vulnerability, a way of letting others see that he may be something other than the soldier he had been bred to be. To him, it was stupid. Some stupid affection for something as little as his brother’s hair.

But he really does love Tup’s hair. The way the dark ringlets curl around his fingers whenever he treads through his waves, the way it is silky against his bare fingers and courses between his fingertips like threads of sunlight, the way that they are cool to the touch and as soft as clouds. He  _ loves _ Tup’s hair. He often scoffs at the other for caring a lot about his hair, when its such a meager attachment and almost unnecessary for them, yet he cares for Tups’ hair too. Long, short, whatever. He just likes it.

He often treads his fingers through the other’s curls after a long day of training, or after they were finished with their tests for weight and strength. Dogma would run his hands through the silky locks, humming to himself as he plays around with the threads, shifting it across his palms. He likes the feel of it. It grounds him down, in a way, softening him up and letting him melt into the feeling of the darkness lolling down his fingertips, smiling at how it resembles and feels like rivers in his hands. 

He doesn’t often do this anymore, playing with Tup’s hair after anything that happens. He doesn’t often let down his guard like this. When he does, he could be feeling an emotion too strongly. It may be happiness, pure joy coursing through him as he design’s the other’s hair, forming braids that fall down across his collarbone. It may be sadness, when he’s holding back tears as he nuzzles his nose into the other’s scalp, his fingers shaking as they play with the baby hairs that fall before Tup’s ears.

It may be fear. May be a panic that seeps through him like a virus, consuming him until everything becomes a blur around him, his breaths quickened and mind throbbing as he attempts to cling to the reality around him. It may be when he’s stumbling across the hallways of the barracks, shaking,  _ trembling _ , as the tears cascade down his thin cheekbones. It may be when he can’t feel anything but the screaming of his own lungs, body tingling and itching as he attempts to take control, finding no surface to grasp onto as the fear and terror and overstimulation of the environment he was trapped in overshadowed everything else.

It is definitely fear now, if you haven’t guessed. Sometimes it’s fear that brings Tup to him, and fear being the reason that Tup leads him away.

Dogma’s vision swims, the room all in a blur of ghostly white and dull steel, his brain hacking at his skull as his feet shake beneath him. He cannot feel the air in his lungs, feel the hand that wraps around his wrist gently, the comfort of another’s touch enough to cripple him until he’s on his knees, sobbing and hitching his breath in terror for something that he could not describe in words.

His vision swims, right up until it focuses just barely on another being. He vaguely registers being lifted from the ground by careful arms, his legs like lead as they step in line with the other person, shaking heavily until he’s able to collapse on the bed. His heart still pulsates within his rib cage. Spiking, pounding until every quarter of blood within him was writhing with the panic. With the fear that chokes him up and makes him forget how to breathe. He can’t deal with this. It’s too much, everything is too much, and he can’t breathe—

He hears someone speak to him. “Dogma?”

Dogma. That sound. That string of useless syllables, contorting from another’s mouth. It manages to pierce the ice just a little, yet the glacier remains, and he still remains in there. Frozen. Helpless. 

A few more calls do the trick.

“Dogma? Dogma, can you hear me?”

Dogma blinks rapidly, the liquid streaming from his tear ducts as he lifts his gaze from beneath him, coming face-to-face with a blur. A large, strange blur. He doesn’t know who it is. He doesn’t know what it wants. He only knows the fear. The fear that is quieted when gentle hands press against his shoulders. Another’s touch.

“Dogma?  _ Vod _ ? I’m here,  _ vod _ . I need you to talk to me. Or at least try.”

“T—” Dogma articulates, but his voice is fractured, useless. He can’t speak, just as he cannot breathe. “T—”

“Yeah, that’s it. You’re alright.”

The shape clears, and the blurry form of the sentient in front of him gives way to another boy. His age. Brown skin dotted with beauty marks, light brown eyes full of concern and compassion that feels undeserved, a mouth pulled into a pursing of lips that contorts with the rest of his face. A teardrop tattoo shows its face then, revealing itself beneath the honey irises of the boy he called his brother. His  _ vod _ .

“Tup?” he exhales when he finally manages to string his speech into forming the name of his own brother, and watches the other nod, terrified frown turning into a small smile.

“Yeah, I’m here,  _ vod _ ,” he tells him. “Just breathe. Breathe. Do you want me to hold you?”

Dogma feels the itchiness of his skin kick up again, each cell of the surface of his body screaming in his ears, but not of fear. No, his body craves for warmth among the cold, the heat of a star away from the vacuum of a cruel void. He craves for another to hold him, to shelter him, to blanket him and keep him safe, to feel the pressing of another person’s skin against his though his mind screams the opposite. He wants to be held, wants to be enveloped in arms that do nothing but bring him comfort in the darkness of times.

Still unable to form long sentences, Dogma nods. “Please.”

Tup obliges, scooting closer to his brother before wrapping his arms around the other’s thin frame, casing him within his embrace. Tup is warm. He’s not cold and ruthless like the white halls of Kamino — he’s kind and gentle and he holds Dogma like he’s a piece of glassware, yet it is just tight enough so that the screeching of his own skin shushes within his grasp. Dogma  _ melts _ into his brother’s arms, his heartbeat no longer a pounding rush of blood in his ears, his breaths now becoming steadier within the arms of another person he loves. He lets the other encase him in his hold before he breaks.

The tears well up in his eyes. He begins to sob into the blacks clothed over Tup’s shoulder. The other brings him to the crook of his neck, running his own hands through Dogma’s hair he had slicked back earlier today, the way he treads through his backwater locks with careful, tender fingers enough to soothe his crying. Dogma shuts his eyes as he buries himself into Tup’s shoulder, while Tup busies himself in doing what he can to comfort him. Rubs on the back, tender touches against his shoulder, the petting of his hair and the whispers of solace that comfort his beating heart.

“You’re alright,  _ vod _ . I’m here. I’m here.”

And Dogma knows he’s here. Dogma’s so glad he’s here. He might be breaking down, but at least Tup is here to pick up his pieces.

He nestles into the other’s chest while Tup strokes his hair, humming so quiet that only they could hear it, his body warm and tender as it brings him back down from his high. He shifts Dogma’s head to the other side of his neck while Dogma slowly begins to regain himself. He reaches up to Tup’s hand that massages his shoulder in comforting circles, lacing their fingers together until they were of one hand. Tup squeezes back when he does so, his smile brightening at the sight.

“I’m sorry…” Dogma is able to articulate. “I’m so…”

“Don’t be sorry,  _ vod _ ,” Tup tells him, shaking his head. He leans the two of them back until they both rest their sides on the bed, making it much easier to wrap his arms around the other. By now, Dogma was calming down. His breaths have become languid and soft, his eyes fluttering shut in peace. He no longer felt as if the ground beneath him was cracking open, and the skies were falling, and the world was ending as he knew it to be. He’s not dying anymore. He knows he’s in Tup’s arms, and now he’s alright.

They lay there in comforting silence, and for once, the quiet doesn’t deafen him. It sings its gorgeous song to him, the one he’s heard in his dreams, of ghostly chimes and serene melodies that ease his running mind. Tup’s hair — currently let down — nuzzles softly against his face.

“What happened?” Tup asks him when his sobs had stifled enough, and the tears no longer came in buckets. “Did someone say something to you or…?”

“I don’t know,” Dogma shrugs, and feels a hot burst of shame course through him from his answer. He doesn’t know why it happened. Doesn’t know what triggered it. Only knew that he was walking down the halls of the barracks when suddenly the chatter around him grew louder, blaring in his ears like warning sirens until it crescendoed. Before he knew it he was running — running from what, he did not know. Only registered the patter of his feet and the shortness of his breath, the loudness too much and throttling his skull until his brain was mush. His skin was tingling, itching until hives appeared, stinging from an unknown cause. He doesn’t know, and he knows he’s stupid for getting a panic attack over nothing, but he really doesn’t know.

“That’s okay,” Tup shushes him, squeezing their interlaced fingers together, providing him a sense of reality. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

Dogma thinks. He nods. “I think so.”

“Okay.”

Then Tup notices that Dogma’s other hand that had been wrapped around his shoulders had loosened, and had begun to play with one of the stray dark curls of his hair. He seems in a trance, eye locked with the silk that filters through his fingertips. 

Tup smiles softly. “You want to braid my hair? I was going to ask you later but I feel like now’s a good time.”

Dogma nods. “If you… don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t,” Tup laughs. He shifts to a sitting position, reaching over to the side of their bunk to take out a small transparent box that he had gotten as a gift from one of their trainers. He opens it up and takes out a few rubber elastics, along with bobby pins and whatnot. He gives them to Dogma before facing the other way, waiting for his brother to do his hair.

Dogma hesitantly crawls over, wrapping his legs loosely around Tup’s waist as he sits behind him, grabbing a nearby comb and brush off the side of the bunk. He brushes through his curly ringlets, loosening any stray tangles in the strands as he parts his hair into several strands. He begins to braid his hair.

He doesn’t know why Tup trusts him much with his hair. Doesn’t know what he did to earn this opportunity. Tup didn’t allow anyone — and that meant  _ anyone _ — to touch his hair without his permission. To him, it was one of the things that made him  _ him _ . It was something that he treasured, something that set him apart from their thousands of brothers, and he took great care of it as a means of being able to own something. When the Kaminoans had tried to cut it, he persisted no matter how much they threatened him. Tup loved his hair. A lot.

When they were younger cadets, Dogma nearly cut his hair. He had nearly fractured their friendship because of his fear of what the Kaminoans would do to Tup. They had already lost their batchmates to decommission, and Dogma had been  _ terrified  _ for Tup ever since, willing to do anything if it meant keeping his brother from the same fate. But Tup had been infuriated, and Dogma had realized that his bond with Tup meant more than the threat of the Kaminoans. Trying to find a way to make it up to his  _ vod _ , he had approached Shaak Ti, and introduced Tup to a topknot. Since then, Dogma styled Dogma’s hair in many different ways, learning from holovids. Saving their friendship, and maybe bringing them closer together. 

Still, Dogma doesn’t know why Tup is so comfortable with letting his guard down around him, of being vulnerable with him. Was it out of necessity? Out of pity? Or maybe even out of love? He doesn’t know. But he wants to hope that it is the last one.

Luckily, braiding Tup’s hair always quiets his mind. The cacophony of the galaxy is shushed when he does his brother’s hair, letting his hands speak for him as he laces the dark brown strands together, creating a long braid from the strands along the sides of Tup’s scalp. He is able to create a half-up, half-down hairstyle. Below the long braid was the rest of Tup’s locks, which he ran his fingers through to get rid of any unnecessary tangles.

“Done,” he whispers when he finishes, crawling over to the side of the bed to retrieve a datapad that he had left there last night. He has honestly no clue why their bed allows for so much room for storing items. He takes a photo of Tup’s hair, then handed it to him to let him see.

Tup takes a glance at it and smiles, reaching up a hand to touch the locks braided at the back of his head. Dogma lightly swats his hands away, huffing. “Oh, no you don’t.”

Tup laughs. “Dogma, I know how to take care of my hair.”

“Maybe,” Dogma scoffs, “but I worked hard on it and I don’t want to have to do it all over again.” He glances back at the accessory box and finds a few small fake flora within its compartments, meant to be laced within the strands of braided hair, and perks up at the sight. “Hold on, let me do something.”

“Hope you’re not going to undo my hair.”

Dogma throws his nose up into the air with a huff, much to Tup’s humor, before retrieving a few of the small accessories in the box. He takes the largest one, cerulean and crystalline, and places it right where he had tied the elastic at the end of the braid, the rest of his curls falling from it in waves. He grabs a few smaller ones, these ones white and pink, and laces them through the gaps of the braids like a crown. Making sure they’re secure with small pins, he takes a picture once more with the datapad, before handing it to Tup.

He’d never admit that he loves how his brother’s eyes practically  _ twinkle _ when he looks at it. “Dang,  _ vod _ .”

“No thank you?” Dogma shoots at him, wrapping his arms around Tup’s chest and nesting his head on his back, the edge of Tup’s curls resting atop his forehead.

Tup snorts. “Thank you, Dogma.”

“That’s better.”

Tup admires his hair in the photo for some time before placing the datapad back down on the bed, his hands wringing around Dogma’s legs still curled around his waist, leaning back into Dogma’s hold. For a while, they just sit there. Quiet as the commotion from outside their barracks becomes nothing but background noise.

“Thank you,” Dogma whispers to Tup. He knows that Tup is grinning though he can’t see him, his hold on Dogma’s legs secure and affectionate.

“No problem, _vod_.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm tired.
> 
> also i made the trans flag with tup's hair flowers.


End file.
